


Blackout

by stateofintegrity



Category: MASH (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-07
Updated: 2020-04-07
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:20:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,774
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23529052
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stateofintegrity/pseuds/stateofintegrity
Summary: Blackout conditions blanket the camp, but, as Charles once bragged, he can see in the dark.
Relationships: Maxwell Klinger/Charles Emerson Winchester III
Comments: 4
Kudos: 30





	Blackout

**Blackout**

Fires burning in oil drums meant to light the pathways and warm personnel on guard duty were doused. Blankets were thrown over reflective surfaces like the windows of the jeeps, and panels were placed over all windows. MPs stalked the unlit alleys between tents, searching for any betraying glints. If there had been a silver lining to the enforced blackout, those same MPs would have rushed to hide it, but some took a sliver of solace in the darkness, reasoning that there was nothing else they could do in pitch black conditions - so they might as well catch up on sleep.

Tired in body from bearing litters full of other, broken bodies, Klinger dragged himself into bed. His section 8 antics extended to sleepwear, so he was garbed in a white nightgown with a sheer, polka-dotted overlay. Sewing that looked like latchwork accented the low-cut collar. Sheer material extended past the solid underskirt at wrists and ankles. The overlay was tiered, each section marked with a flowery line of ruffles. The sleeves were fitted and gathered at the elbow and wrist before flaring in an elegant design that reminded him of butterflies. It was some of his best work. Klinger had learned from experience that it was easier to sleep through the threat of sniper fire if he wrapped himself in finery first. He put his mink over the bed covers for an extra layer of warmth.

When he awoke, full darkness still blanketed the camp, which made the presence of an intruder very frightening indeed. Klinger silently cursed himself for being the kind of man who slept with curlers instead of with a gun. There was scarcely enough light to permit the intruder’s silhouette to be seen and Klinger felt a pang of regret because that meant his murderer wasn’t going to see his needlework, either.

“Klinger? Are you awake?”

 _Oh, good. I’m at least going to get killed by someone who knows my name_. Then recognition set in. “Major Winchester!?!? What are you doing here? You could have been killed walking across the compound!”

Winchester came close enough that Klinger could see his expression; he looked the tiniest bit proud, like a man who’d won an oversized stuffed animal at the carnival for his girl. “Nonsense. All Winchesters possess superior night vision. I can, ah, see a cat before he sees me.” He smiled, pleased at his own wit.

“That still doesn’t explain why you’d risk your life to come here in a blackout in the middle of the night! If Hawk or BJ wakes up and sees you’re gone, they’ll panic!”

“My swamp-mates went swimming in gin before they retired. I doubt seriously that an artillery barrage could wake them. My absence will go quite unnoticed.”

His presence, however, was definitely being noticed - and disapproved of. “Major. What. Are. You. Doing. Here?”

Winchester took his hand. “Maxwell, you know perfectly well why I am here. We have been playing this game for _weeks_. I pursue. You scamper off. We are inevitably interrupted. Besides being able to see uncannily well in low light, a Winchester never passes up an opportunity to further a goal.”

Klinger groaned and fought his hand loose. “Major...”

“We’re quite alone, Max. You might try calling me by my name. Surely you can manage a single syllable.”

Klinger’s teeth grated together. “ _Charles_ , I’ll call you whatever you want if you get out of here in the next five minutes.”

“You’d send me out into the dark? Alone? Klinger, there may be snipers!”

Klinger could practically hear a chess piece tipping over: checkmate. “Fine. You can stay.”

“And you said there was no basis for this relationship,” Charles responded with a smile. “You want me alive. I call that a perfectly fine place to start.”

Klinger looked around for something to throw. It was too dark to distinguish much. “Major, we’ve been through this. Whatever _this_ is, it isn’t what you think.”

“What are you so afraid of, Max?”

“I’m not afraid,” returned the Corporal. “I’m trying to protect your reputation until you get over this... this confusion!”

“I do appreciate your efforts, but first of all, if you didn’t care for me, you wouldn’t bother trying to protect me. Second, there’s no one here, so my reputation remains, regrettably, intact. Third, I am not in the least confused. And finally, if you’d let me in that bed for three minutes, I could convince you of my certainty, my sincerity, and my ardor in one go.”

“You really do think a lot of yourself, Major. And you’re not coming in here, so feel free to make yourself comfortable on the floor.”

Winchester had planned for this eventuality and grudgingly spread out a thin bedroll. The way he navigated the mess of the tent gave some credence to his claim that he saw well in the dark. When silence fell, Klinger said a silent prayer of thanksgiving. Charles had been mad to come at all, but if all he did was sleep, he could handle it. Reveille wasn’t that far away. He actually felt sorry for the man; Charles had to be deeply lonely to see him as a potential love interest.

Then the surgeon spoke. “Corporal, would it be too much trouble to ask why you think I’m pursuing you?”

 _Oh, here we go._ He made a mental note to ask Father Mulcahy if there was a prayer for unrequited and misguided attraction. “What do you mean, Major?”

“You won’t accept my reasons. I’ve given you my word as a Winchester, which has been accepted in far more imposing settings than Uijeongbu, but you won’t take it. So why do _you_ think I am here in the middle of the night?”

“Bugs.”

“Bugs!?”

“Right. There all kinds of them here, Major. They cause rashes, diseases, you name it. I’ll bet nobody even knows what kinds there are, there’s so many.”

“Alright, I will temporarily sign on to this entomological theory. I agree that Korea is home to hosts of things that buzz and sting and bite and carry pestilence. Are you suggesting that I have been so ‘bugged’ by these insects that I have been driven mad and thence to you?”

“It’s a thought,” Klinger replied. “Some medicine can make you see things, right? Maybe some bug bites can, too!”

“For your theory to hold water, every person in camp would have to be experiencing similar visions, since we are all subject to this wretched climate and its attendant pests.”

“Well, maybe it’s not bugs, exactly. But I read about these things that like hijack animals. They want to get into a cat, right? So, they get into a rat and then convince the rat that it _loves_ cats... which doesn’t end up good for the rat.”

Charles sighed. “You are describing a parasite, Klinger. And riddled as this place is with parasites, I can safely assure you that my mind - and my heart - are still under my direction.” He shook his head. “A parasite, honestly?! Perhaps you’re right to note that I possess too high an opinion of myself, but good gracious, man! How can you think so little of _you_?”

His tone said _you should be ashamed_ and his disappointment and disbelief were so real that Klinger actually hung his head.

“So, bugs are out,” Charles went on. “Next theory please, Corporal.”

“Huh?”

“If you’ve banished me to this uncomfortable span of floor because of some flimflammery about bugs, I’m going to be very sore - and not merely because this floor is thin and Korea is full of rocks.”

It was at that moment that Klinger realized he had committed himself to a game of verbal table tennis with a very eager and very cunning opponent. _Oh, what a pretty basket of vipers I’ve bought for myself. I wonder if I have pumps to match?_

“Next theory,” Charles prompted again.

“Boredom.”

Charles made a sound that declared this ridiculous, preposterous, and a tiny bit asinine. “Klinger, I have the most comprehensive record collection in South Korea. I am never bored. Next.”

Other members of the 4077th were sleeping, Klinger lamented. And here he was flinging his body across an impossible space to return a serve in a game he didn’t even want to win. “Well, you, uh, maybe you’re just hard up, then, Major.”

“What a curious expression. Do explain it to me, would you?”

Klinger felt his face heat, knew he was being drawn into depths beyond his strength to tread. “You’re lonely,” he clarified, hating to say it because he believed it was very true.

Charles sat up; did Klinger actually sound worried about him? “Corporal, set aside all the other merits I possess. I am a wealthy man. If all I wanted was a bedmate, I could buy one. In fact, chasing you has been so far, a singularly unsatisfying sexual experience.” He paused. “Would you care to remedy that, or do you have any other theories you wish to advance?”

Klinger screamed into his pillow. Charles waited until he was done to say, “Next.”

Klinger said nothing.

“Shall I take it from your silence that you have exhausted all of your theories?”

“I’m exhausted all right, Major,” came the weary reply. Klinger stared at the ceiling of the tent and wondered what it was, exactly, for which he was being punished.

“Then you must accept the only remaining possibility.”

Klinger felt the kernel of a headache buried in his brain begin to stir; watered by Charles’ words, it threatened to put down roots. “What’s that?”

“That I am _sincere_. And if you accept that, as my mere presence here demands you ought, then please tell me how you can possibly continue to turn me down? What is it that lies between us, Max?”

The last was close to a plea. It hurt the Corporal just hear it. “Charles...” _Please don’t make me hurt you_. “Major, you’re an officer and an actual gentleman. I’m a Corporal and a coward. You’re Boston nobility, practically, and I’m Toledo delicatessen. You’re a surgeon and I’m usually in a skirt! What kind of match is that and why are you grinning like that?”

Charles’ gleaming grin hung in the darkness of the tent like the smile of the Cheshire cat. “Don’t you hear yourself, man? Your objections reside in superficialities!”

“I don’t follow you, Major,” Klinger admitted, but he, too, was sitting up now, staring away as if to read Charles’ face, which he couldn’t see. He couldn’t make out all that he heard in his voice, but there was an element of delight there for sure.

“Mere trifles. Irrelevancies. Surface matters.” He stood and came closer, and Klinger wanted to curse the ease with which he traversed the inky blackness.

 _Well_ , the Corporal thought with grudging admiration, _if I’m ever stuck in a mineshaft or at the bottom of a well, it’s Charles I’ll hope to be stuck with. Maybe_.

“Maxwell, listen to me. The things in which you have rooted your resistance are not permanent. They are passing. Fleeting.” He searched his face and still saw confusion. “There are things about me that I cannot change. I am never going to have more hair than this, for instance. I assure you - I’ve tried. I cannot change my height or my birthplace any more than you can.”

“Sure,” Klinger agreed, wishing for a roadmap to this meandering conversation.

“Max, may I sit down?”

“If you can behave, sure.” He hadn’t forgotten that hand-grabbing bit from earlier.

Charles eagerly sat on the edge of the bed. “Max, you have not said no because I am another man or even because you don’t love me. It is true that I am rich now, but because this war removed me from my proper setting, I will never be as rich as I could have been, and I may lose what I have saved. It is true that you are currently a Corporal, but you may be promoted. Do you see?”

“You’re saying none of that stuff is important?” He sounded entirely skeptical.

“Exactly! So, tell me what you want me to set aside.”

“What?”

“Tell me what difference bothers you the most. I will undo it if I can. I should warn you that I do not believe that Potter will allow me to shirk my surgical duties while I am here, but otherwise I am yours to command.”

“You’re crazy, Major! You’re telling me that all I have to do is say so and you’ll what? Resign your commission?”

“If you wish it.”

“Give up the money?”

“In a trice.”

“All on my say so.”

“Yes. And on the condition that you’ll be mine.”

 _He means it. Damn it, he’d do it. If I say the word, he’ll be on the phone by morning to brokers in cities I’ve never heard of. Which means that he means **the other part** too_.

Maybe Charles really could see in the dark. “You see now, don’t you?”

“I’m starting to,” Klinger admitted.

“Why didn’t you believe me from the first?” The words were soft as the first brush strokes of light that would signal the arrival of the dawn.

“Honestly?”

“Of course. Please.”

“I thought you were having fun with me. I kept waiting for you to say, ‘gotcha, Corporal! Here’s a year of KP for being such a good sport.’”

“But certainly there came a time when you realized my true intentions.”

“Definitely.” He remembered the look in those eyes - the way they had softened. “That’s when you scared me to death.”

Charles took a stab at humor. “Because of the parasites?”

They laughed together. “Well, sure, _them_!” He got quieter, added, “Mostly because I had no idea what to do with you. I don’t mind when people laugh at my costumes. I couldn’t stand it if I was the reason they laughed at you.”

“Ah, but this is why you should have confided in me, Max. Besides being able to see in the dark, Winchesters are impervious to ridicule undertaken by those we don’t respect. More importantly, however: I have always known exactly what I wanted to do with, and to, you.”

“You’re not going back to the floor, are you?”

“I’ve pronounced myself free of parasites - and I’m a doctor, so you can trust the diagnosis. I’ve disavowed money and proclaimed my love for you in the best and strongest terms I know. I think I’ve earned a kiss, at least.”

A kiss in the dark, his treacherous heart piped up, what can possibly come of that?

“If you can find me, cat-eyes, you can kiss me, but,”

He never got out the part about “keep your hands to yourself.”

As if he had practiced this maneuver thousands of times, Charles twitched the covers aside, placed a hand at the back of Klinger’s head to angle it, and kissed him into something close to the textbook definition of hypoxia. When he drew back, he even complimented the decorative frills on his gown.

 _Oh sure_ , thought Klinger. _Kiss a guy defenseless and then compliment his sewing. Who can stand up to that_!?

“Are you sure you still want me to sleep down there?” Charles asked, sounding very much like a cat whose mouth was studded with canary feathers.

Klinger just made a wrecked sound.

“Thought so.”

Then, without missing a beat, he proceeded to teach Klinger all the things he’d dreamed of doing with (and to) him. Throughout, he offered the conquered Corporal very little chance to reciprocate.

When Klinger protested, Charles pushed his hands gently but firmly away. “Klinger, I have worked very hard for weeks to get to precisely this place. It is now my express intention and dearest wish to prove to you why you should allow me to stay.”

“I can’t make you leave when I try! You just pop up again in the middle of the night!”

Charles laughed. “Yes, but I would have you admire me for more than sheer persistence.”

“I already do,” Klinger returned.

“Oh?”

“You got me out of my nightgown without hurting the stitching in the middle of a blackout - you really do have good eyes!” Then he left off teasing to add, “I’m glad you stuck it out, Charles.”

“As am I.”

***

The next day at reveille, it was announced that blackout conditions would continue for the next three nights. Potter was surprised to find that this announcement made his company clerk blush and one of his surgeons nearly dance a jig, but then, war was hell, and it got to people in all manner of ways.

END!


End file.
